Politicians and criminals

What are major crimes? One would probably include rape, molestation and sexual harassment, human trafficking, murder, kidnapping and abduction, dowry deaths, terrorism and so on. There is no need to debate whether there has been criminalization of politics or politicization of criminals, whichever is the appropriate expression. The 1993 Vohra Committee report has plenty of stuff on this. Thanks to electoral affidavits, we have information now on criminal antecedents of those who stand for elections. It is a separate matter that this disclosure is sometimes imperfect and indeed, there is a case for more stringent penalties for providing wrong information or concealing it, as there is for mandatory disclosure before one becomes MP/MLA. Thanks to the imperfect affidavits, we know 6 MLA have rape charges against them, 36 MLAs have other charges of crimes against women and 2 MPs have charges of crimes against women. This is about those who have been elected. For candidates in Assembly elections, data for last 5 years show 260 candidates had charges of crimes against women, 27 being charges of rape. For 2009 Lok Sabha elections, 34 candidates had charges of crimes against women, 6 being rape. Understandably, there has been outrage about rape and demands that incumbent 2 MPs and 6 (or 36) MLAs should resign.

Resignation is voluntary, as is a code of conduct by political parties that nominations will not be given to those who face criminal charges. What about mandatory bars? Representation of the People Act (RPA) has provisions on disqualification from date of conviction/date of release. But we know problems associated with criminal justice system. Therefore, conviction rates are low and the problem is instances where trials are pending.

First, whatever is contemplated should be done not only for rapes and other crimes against women. It should be for all major crimes. Major crimes may seem like a subjective expression, but it can be pinned down and made objective. For example, all crimes that have a mandatory minimum punishment of imprisonment of 5 years or more can be classified as major crimes. Second, do we bar for a certain number of years or do we bar permanently? For major crimes, I suspect there should be provisions on permanent barring. Third, a trial goes through a process and there are inordinate delays.

When we say conviction rates are 6%, we actually mean on database of FIR filing. If one uses database of charge-sheets, conviction rates actually go up to around 40%. In the pipeline, a large part of the problem is space between FIR filing and Court framing charges, reflective of problems with police. Charge-sheets mean Courts have scrutinized and there is a prima facie case. Thus, any debarring idea works better for charge-sheets than FIRs and chances of abuse are lower.

Fourth, I have great discomfort with the suggestion that there should be special courts to fast-track cases where candidates to political office are involved. Indeed, I have discomfort with the present fast-tracking of the high-profile and visible rape case. Subject to many rapes not being reported, there were more than 24,000 rape cases in India in 2011. While all of them may not have been as brutal as the Delhi one, several were just as bad. In other words, emphasis on fast track courts for specific cases diverts attention from core problem of fast-tracking all criminal cases.

There are of course broader problems, police, number of courts/judges, problems with CrPC, Indian Evidence Act and so on. But think of this. 11th Finance Commission originally provided a special grant for 1734 fast track courts (FTCs). At that time, the note prepared for this granted had the explicit expectation that a judge in each FTC would dispose of 14 sessions trial cases per month. This means, despite all those constraints, 14 was accepted as a realistic norm. Consider what has happened since then. While there are State-level variations, all-India FTCs have disposed of 15 cases per month per FTC, not per judge and I am not even getting into questions of what “disposed” means. Despite all those constraints, and they are real, there is plenty more the judicial system can do and in all this fast-track business, let us not lose sight of that.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Author

Bibek Debroy is an economist, columnist and author. He has worked for the government, for an industry chamber and for academic (teaching and research) institutes. He is the author of several books, papers and popular articles. He is now a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, Delhi

Bibek Debroy is an economist, columnist and author. He has worked for the government, for an industry chamber and for academic (teaching and research) insti. . .